Excerpt from 'Running Toward Everywhere'

Riding Toward Everywhere

Ecoo

Chapter One

A Short Essay on Freight Trains

I am my father's son. On a recent Christmas, in the
bakery which not only is the best in town but never
forgets it, we were waiting to pick up our pie, and my
father came to my side to chat with me. One of the
highest sugar-and-butter arbiters, who puts the public
in its place even in seasons when it cannot overwhelm
her, commanded: Sir, you need to stop blocking the line
right now!-My father turned to me and remarked
conversationally: Give some people a little power and
they turn into Nazis, don't they?

My father grew up in an era when to be an American-a
white American, at least-was to be yourself. In some
respects his generation was more ignorant, complacent,
self-centered and parochial than mine. For better and
for worse, it actually believed in progress, which is to
say that it was also more sure of itself, comparatively
self-reliant and accordingly less corrupted by
toadying-more American in the best sense. My
grandfather's time must have been even more
individualistic. With his by-Gods and goddamns, my
grandfather laid down opinions without great reverence
for the judgments of others. -I just don't know, Bill,
he said once at a museum exhibit on the history of
female suffrage. Maybe we shouldn't have given women the
vote. What do you think? -And he got his reward: glares
of hatred and outrage from all ladies present. -Does
contrarianism equal freedom of thought? I prefer my
grandfather's abrasive and frequently tedious
self-assertion to my neighbors' equivalently wrongheaded
chorus. But should I label him any the less conformist?
He once told me that if I had been his son he would have
beaten my differentness out of me. It was his faith that
American authority could do no wrong, in evidence of
which I quote one of his pronouncements: You know what
burns me up? All those rioters complaining about the
police trampling on their rights! Don't they get it?
When there's a riot, those sons of bitches have no
rights! -As for my father, his epoch was the heyday of
the Organization Man, and he respected rules,
hierarchies and technocratic methods more than he knew;
he simply happened to be good enough to make some of the
rules. I once asked him why he wore a suit every working
day, and he replied that one picks one's battles and he
had more interesting battles to fight than dress code
skirmishes. He was right. When I need to meet somebody
important in Japan, I wear my suit. It is probable that
my father enjoys his suits more than I do. In any event,
fortified by them he looked factory managers in the eye
and told them exactly where they were screwing up.
-Weren't you just a little hard on those guys? an
Associate Vice-President inquired-an accolade my father
reported with glee. He taught his students without fear
or favor, never missing a lecture in all the decades of
his career. He worked hard, lived the life he chose, and
said precisely what he thought. On his desk lay a
paperweight engraved with his favorite motto: Bullshit
Baffles Brains.

I am my father's son, which is to say that I am not
exactly my father. In some ways I am shyer than he, in
others more extreme and bold. My father believes that
drugs should be legalized, regulated and taxed. So do I.
My father has never sampled a controlled substance and
never will. I've proudly committed every victimless
crime that I can think of. My father actively does not
want to know which acts I have performed and with whom.

I still go to the bakery my father hates, and the woman
who told my father to get back in line nods at me. My
father will never go back there. Perhaps if I were more
my father's son I wouldn't patronize the place, either.
But I am less proud than he, more submissive-or maybe
more indifferent.

I work hard, make money, not as effectively as my father
did but well enough to get by. I say what I think, and
sometimes get a reward surpassing my grandfather's:
death threats. So far, I've never missed a deadline for
a term paper, a review, a manuscript. I perform the
mumbo-jumbo of voting with belief in my heart, I've not
yet won even a jaywalking ticket, and unlike my father,
whom I fault in this respect, I refrain from opting out
of jury duty; instead, they mostly kick me out.

My father hates organized religion, probably because he
hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I
find religions variously bemusing. My father likes nice
cars and is a sucker for the latest gadget. I enjoy the
few mechanical devices which are simple enough for me to
understand, such as semiautomatic pistols. My father
hunted in his youth and still occasionally shoots
handguns with me, but has come to disapprove of civilian
firearms ownership, an attitude which disappoints me. He
has voted Republican most of his life, but he and I
agree in hating the current President.

My father has lived in Europe for many years. I am not
sure that he realizes how much his native country has
changed. People don't dare anymore to talk back the way
he used to.

As I get older, I find myself getting angrier and
angrier. Doubtless change itself, not to mention
physical decline and inevitable petty tragedies of
disappointed expectations, would have made for
resentment in any event; but I used to be a passive
schoolboy, my negative impulses turned obediently
inward. Now I gaze around this increasingly un-American
America of mine, and I rage.

So many of these developments are well-meaning. Children
must buckle up in the school buses, and, speaking of
children, I had better not enter into conversation with
a child I don't know, in case the parents brand me ...